Chantelle Marshall

“Any writing which has influenced the thinking and the lives of innumerable people is important. Now, there are many millions in their sects and churches who feel the order, ‘Do thou,’ and throw their weight into obedience. And there are millions more who feel predestination in ‘Thou shalt.’ Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be. But “Thou mayest’! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden by John Steinbeck: A Timeless Tale of Family, Free Will, and the Eternal Struggle Between Good and Evil

“How could I just turn my back on him like this? But how could I stay? It isn’t the money. It isn’t. I’d gladly give him every cent I have. Because the truth is, I really can put up with the fact that he thought I was fat. And I can put up with the fact that he apparently complained about my fatness to his family. And I can put up with the gambling, and even with the fact that he pretended like he couldn’t come so I would give him a blow job. But defrauding poor people? Because that is basically what someone who takes unemployment while having a paying job is doing. That I cannot tolerate.”
― Meg Cabot, Queen of Babble

“Some people have said it all by the time they’re twenty-two or twenty-five, but I don’t get that feeling with Hendrix or Joplin. I don’t think they were finished.”
― Jessica Pallington West, What Would Keith Richards Do?: Daily Affirmations from a Rock 'n' Roll Survivor

“unyielding loyalty to a man I despise—is that Lidia North is a weak woman. Timid. Milquetoast. She has no metal in her spine, no opinions of her own. I need my friends to be interesting. To have vim and vigor.”
― Ariel Lawhon, The Frozen River